Simon & Garfunkel, Pink Floyd recordings to be preserved

Simon and Garfunkel's song Sounds of Silence and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon are among the 25 recordings selected for preservation at the U.S. Library of Congress.

The National Recording Registry chooses a handful of recordings each year for preservation, based on their cultural, artistic and historic importance. Nominations were gathered through online submissions from the public and a group of leaders in the fields of music, recorded sound and preservation, with the librarian of Congress making the final cut.

Sounds of Silence, full of laments for American civic life, was written amid the turmoil following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Recorded following the introduction of a rock sound to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s folk act, the album was a turning point for the duo, who had split up after struggling to make a go of music.

"When you look at the little mesh, wire microphone ... and you address people on the other side of the mic, you hope that your performance will be special, and you hope that it will have lasting power," said Garfunkel, 71.

He said he remembers thinking in the ‘60s that "if we do really good and give a very special performance to these great Paul Simon songs, we might last right into the next century and be appreciated."

Public nominate Dark Side of the Moon

Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon  received the highest number of public nominations among this year’s picks.

The concept album devoted to themes of madness and the passage of time ushered in recent technological innovations such as 16-track recorders and synthesizers and unusual effects such as the choir in Time and double-tracked vocal harmonies.

The oldest recording selected is Marion Harris’s 1918 rendition of After You’ve Gone, a seminal performance that introduced  a relaxed style with a blues-inflected melody and signaled the end to the stiff, formal performances of earlier in the century.

One of the most recent additions is Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach, a groundbreaking opera that was first recorded in 1979.

Other selections capture a moment in pop culture, including Chubby Checker’s 1960s dance hit The Twist, Artie Shaw’s 1938 recording of Begin the Beguine and Will Rogers singing Depression-era hit Bacon, Beans and Limousines.

George Hicks' D-Day broadcast

The Library of Congress also will preserve the D-Day radio broadcast by George Hicks, who observed the D-Day invasion of Normandy from a troop ship on June 5 and 6, 1944. Audiences heard his voice over the din of combat later the first day of the invasion, when restrictions on broadcast were lifted. The riveting first-person account was later released on a 78-rpm record.

Other works to be preserved:  

• You Are My Sunshine, Jimmie Davis (1940).
• Just Because, Frank Yankovic & His Yanks (1947).
• South Pacific, Original Cast Album (1949).
• Descargas: Cuban Jam Session in Miniature, Cachao Y Su Ritmo Caliente (1957).
• Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Van Cliburn (April 11, 1958).
• President's message relayed from Atlas satellite, Dwight D. Eisenhower (Dec. 19, 1958).
• A Program of Song, Leontyne Price (1959).
• The Shape of Jazz to Come, Ornette Coleman (1959)
• Crossing Chilly Jordan, The Blackwood Brothers (1960).
• Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s, Clarence Ashley, Doc Watson, et al. (1960-1962).
• Hoodoo Man Blues, Junior Wells (1965).
• Cheap Thrills, Big Brother and the Holding Company (1968).
• Music Time in Africa, Leo Sarkisian, host (July 29, 1973).
• Wild Tchoupitoulas, The Wild Tchoupitoulas (1976).
• Ramones, The Ramones (1976).
• Saturday Night Fever, The Bee Gees, et al (1977).
• The Audience with Betty Carter, Betty Carter (1980).

Public nominations for next year's set of recordings to be preserved are now being accepted.